ABSTRACT
Britain’s extraordinary burst in state housing activity marked her out from Europe or America in a similar period. The 1919 Act subsidised, for the first time, private building for owner-occupation and from then on private building boomed. When the Second World War began, Britain’s modern tenure pattern was firmly set – rising, cross-class owner-occupation; expanding, increasingly targeted and lower standard council housing; a declining private landlord tradition. While the slum clearance of the 1930s brought social needs to the fore, only a minority of councils had appointed housing managers by the Second World War. The stock of houses in Britain had risen from 7.5 million at the outset of the First World War to 11.5 million at the outbreak of the Second World War. By the Second World War, council housing had become firmly embedded in the national psyche as the tenure that catered for slum dwellers.
